Hertz - Rant: BAD business practice

As a loyal Hertz customer, I have 37 rentals this year, will end up around 42. I travel at least twice a month to STL and the last 2 times I have been down there, Hertz has been sold out. I usually pick up cars in the morning and return them the next morning or the same afternoon.

When I again today tried to reserve a car from Hertz, they had no availability. I thought that was kind of strange, so I called Hertz Gold Desk and asked. Yepp, sold out, but not really... The STL location has a 2 day minimum. :confused:

I checked the website, and what do you know: A 2 day minimum is in effect EVERY WEEK this year at STL!!! That's also the reason why I wasn't able to reserve a car the two other times I was there.

Asked to speak to a supervisor, and we agreed: All car classes were available and availability was good, but they refused to rent out a car less than 2 days, meaning 180 dollars instead of 90. And this was for a rental from 9AM to 3PM on a WEDNESDAY.

I understand a 2 day minimum on a weekend, but during the week is something I have NEVER heard of when availability is good.

I rent cars almost every week and have NEVER seen a policy like this at a CORPORATE location forcing me to go to the competition. There was nothing anyone could do, except a manager at the STL location. Of course, noone picks up the phone at the location.

So NOBODY at Hertz is able to help, the manager at a crappy airport location sets precedence of a multi billion dollar rental company's policy.

Ready to say bye bye, PC at this point

Wacky. Here's what i can tell you from experience, though. I have run into weird yield management scenarios where a Hertz location may impose even a 3-day minimum. But, I have rented during that time, reserving for 3 days and returning after 1 or 2 days, and only been charged for the days I had the car out.

I wouldn't ever defend such a practice if it is done as you have described, across the board without regard to the level of bookings. But it is indeed possible to fairly painlessly get around it, if you want to.

I regularly run into this situation, so I book cars for multiple days and return early. I'm never charged more than the daily rate on these rentals.

I managed the fleet at a top-20 Hertz location and we commonly did this on a rental that started Tues and/or Wed. The reason behind it is because the company want to capture longer rentals. Every time someone rents a car, we have to rent it, return it, clean it, shuttle it, etc. Each movement costs money. From a business standpoint, it is more cost effective to take a two day rental and deny two one day rentals.

Do people reserve for a longer time and return early? Of course. There is no "fool proof" system, so to speak.

I have also seen times when we were scraping the barrel for fleet and still taking reservations for long periods of time (say 7 days or longer.) Because again, we will find something for the renter to drive to keep the car out for a week without "touching" it.

I managed the fleet at a top-20 Hertz location and we commonly did this on a rental that started Tues and/or Wed. The reason behind it is because the company want to capture longer rentals. Every time someone rents a car, we have to rent it, return it, clean it, shuttle it, etc. Each movement costs money. From a business standpoint, it is more cost effective to take a two day rental and deny two one day rentals.

Do people reserve for a longer time and return early? Of course. There is no "fool proof" system, so to speak.

I have also seen times when we were scraping the barrel for fleet and still taking reservations for long periods of time (say 7 days or longer.) Because again, we will find something for the renter to drive to keep the car out for a week without "touching" it.

I managed the fleet at a top-20 Hertz location and we commonly did this on a rental that started Tues and/or Wed. The reason behind it is because the company want to capture longer rentals. Every time someone rents a car, we have to rent it, return it, clean it, shuttle it, etc. Each movement costs money. From a business standpoint, it is more cost effective to take a two day rental and deny two one day rentals.

Do people reserve for a longer time and return early? Of course. There is no "fool proof" system, so to speak.

I have also seen times when we were scraping the barrel for fleet and still taking reservations for long periods of time (say 7 days or longer.) Because again, we will find something for the renter to drive to keep the car out for a week without "touching" it.

Fair enough, but when you have plenty of cars available and your competition has as well, where do you think the customer will go??

Check STL for next week. All car rental places has plenty of cars. Hertz is the only location that requires 2 day rentals.

I regularly run into this situation, so I book cars for multiple days and return early. I'm never charged more than the daily rate on these rentals.

Thanks for the tip. Will try it in STL next week:)

i do a lot of day trips for my business, and i imagine my rental pattern is very common: flying in for a meeting, deposition, or other one-day event. if i ever encountered this rule, i would simply rent somewhere else.

a two-day minimum is a sign that the rental location doesn't want business traveler customers.

i do a lot of day trips for my business, and i imagine my rental pattern is very common: flying in for a meeting, deposition, or other one-day event. if i ever encountered this rule, i would simply rent somewhere else.

a two-day minimum is a sign that the rental location doesn't want business traveler customers.

My exact travel pattern as well. In and out the same day, 24 hrs at the most.

A couple of questions that beg to be asked:

If business travellers just start booking for 2 days and dropping off when they planned to anyways, doesn't this defeat the purpose of a 2-day minimum?

How much cleaning does a car that's been out for an afternoon really require? Maybe a quick rinse and shake out the driver's side floormat. I've rented cars for less than a day and bringing them back they hardly look like I touched them. I had a Suzuki SX4 from National for about 8 hours last year and I even told the guy to just back it out and reverse it in to call it clean.

A couple of questions that beg to be asked:

If business travellers just start booking for 2 days and dropping off when they planned to anyways, doesn't this defeat the purpose of a 2-day minimum?

Not if the location actually starts charging for the minimum of 2 days as per the min rental agreement.

Dave

Not if the location actually starts charging for the minimum of 2 days as per the min rental agreement.

Dave


I'd like to see them try - my corporate rate is guaranteed daily rate, and i've never seen a rental agreement that says "$190 for 2 days" they always say "$89/day x2" that being said my corporate rate has a provision to allow them to charge a few dollars more for peak one day rentals ($3?)

I managed the fleet at a top-20 Hertz location and we commonly did this on a rental that started Tues and/or Wed. The reason behind it is because the company want to capture longer rentals. Every time someone rents a car, we have to rent it, return it, clean it, shuttle it, etc. Each movement costs money. From a business standpoint, it is more cost effective to take a two day rental and deny two one day rentals.

Do people reserve for a longer time and return early? Of course. There is no "fool proof" system, so to speak.

I have also seen times when we were scraping the barrel for fleet and still taking reservations for long periods of time (say 7 days or longer.) Because again, we will find something for the renter to drive to keep the car out for a week without "touching" it.

Makes perfect (business) sense to me, but it seems that if Hertz is in tune with managing rentals this way they would redo the qualification requirements for PC to focus on rental days instead of number of rentals. Who costs the company more, someone who rents for 60 1 day rentals or someone to rents 10 times for 60 days total?

Makes perfect (business) sense to me, but it seems that if Hertz is in tune with managing rentals this way they would redo the qualification requirements for PC to focus on rental days instead of number of rentals. Who costs the company more, someone who rents for 60 1 day rentals or someone to rents 10 times for 60 days total?

when a company starts looking at which customers cost more instead of how much they make off the customers, they start to make bad business decisions. a 2 day minimum in a place like STL when capacity is available both internally and at your competitor is an example of this. since hz got purchased by the pe guys, i've seen the focus go from differentiation to cost.

I'd like to see them try - my corporate rate is guaranteed daily rate, and i've never seen a rental agreement that says "$190 for 2 days" they always say "$89/day x2" that being said my corporate rate has a provision to allow them to charge a few dollars more for peak one day rentals ($3?)

If you make the booking for 2 days , then I cannot see that they would have an issue charging for 2 on the grounds that they were only prepared to rent for a min of 2 days and that their system would not have allowed a 1 day rental

Dave

From a business standpoint, it is more cost effective to take a two day rental and deny two one day rentals.


If you have cars on the lot available anyway, is it more cost effective to deny someone a 1 day rental and risk them going to a competitor? Especially if, as the other posts state, a 2 day rental returned early will only be charged for the 1 day anyway.

This makes no sense to me.